The Anonymous hacking collective's AntiSec group has launched a fresh assault on law enforcement agencies with the release of what they claim are personal emails stolen from a Californian cybercrime investigator.

The cache of emails – which according to AntiSec are from the account of Fred Baclagan, a retired special agent supervisor of the Californian Department of Justice – includes 30,000 emails detailing various computer forensic techniques and cybercrime investigation protocols.

The hacktivists claim to have hacked into Baclagan's Gmail account and to have accessed his voicemails and SMS message logs using unspecified techniques as part of their ongoing campaign against law enforcement officials and their "allies" in the computer security industry.

The email dump, released as a torrent last Friday in part of what has become the group's regular FuckFBIFriday release, is also said to contain personal information including Baclagan's home address and phone number.

"Possibly the most interesting content in his emails are the IACIS.com* internal email list archives (2005-2011), which detail the methods and tactics cybercrime units use to gather electronic evidence, conduct investigations and make arrests," a member of Anonymous said on a statement accompanying the release, adding that knowledge of these techniques will help hacktivists to develop better tradecraft and anti-forensic techniques.

"There are discussions about using EnCase forensic software, attempts to crack TrueCrypt encrypted drives, sniffing wireless traffic in mobile surveillance vehicles, how to best prepare search warrants and subpoenas, and a whole lot of clueless people asking questions on how to use basic software like FTP. In the end, we rickrolled the entire IACIS list, causing the administrators to panic and shut their list and websites down.

But Baclagan told the Huffington Post that he was nobody special in the Justice Department ... which is what he would say, of course. He said that he had specialised in identity theft before he retired last year. "I'm really just a nobody," he told the Post, "just a local investigator, not involved in anything dynamic or dramatic. ®

Bootnote

*IACIS is the International Association of Computer investigative Specialists, an volunteer-led non-profit organisation made up of law enforcement pros and geared towards developing and etching best practice in computer forensics. (via)